becomes a class other than the remaining classes, and being other than

all of them, is not each one of them, and is not all the rest, so that

undoubtedly there are thousands upon thousands of cases in which

being is not, and all other things, whether regarded individually or

collectively, in many respects are, and in many respects are not.

THEAETETUS: True.

STRANGER: And he who is sceptical of this contradiction, must think how

he can find something better to say; or if he sees a puzzle, and his

pleasure is to drag words this way and that, the argument will prove to

him, that he is not making a worthy use of his faculties; for there is

no charm in such puzzles, and there is no difficulty in detecting them;

but we can tell him of something else the pursuit of which is noble and

also difficult.

THEAETETUS: What is it?

STRANGER: A thing of which I have already spoken;--letting alone these

puzzles as involving no difficulty, he should be able to follow and

criticize in detail every argument, and when a man says that the same is

in a manner other, or that other is the same, to understand and refute

him from his own point of view, and in the same respect in which he

asserts either of these affections. But to show that somehow and in some

sense the same is other, or the other same, or the great small, or

the like unlike; and to delight in always bringing forward such

114

Sophist